Reliance Jio JioPhone: Mukesh Ambani used the company's AGM to announce that Reliance Jio now has over 125 million users, and had undertaken the largest migration of free to paid to customers with over 100 million paid customers

Reliance Industries Limited chairman Mukesh Ambani on Friday announced the JioPhone, a 4G VoLTE feature phone which he called ‘India ka Smartphone’. The phone is a feature phone, but with a larger screen, access to apps and of course 4G data and 4G VoLTE calls and will effectively cost the customer Rs 0 for the device and Rs 153 per month as monthly tariff. The phone will be available for beta testing from August 15 and for prebooking from August 21. The phones will be available for sale at a first come, first serve basis from the last quarter of 2017. The target is to make 5 million phones available every week.

The JioPhone will always have free voice calls. From August 15, the JioPhone will come with free unlimited data. Ä similar quantity of data on any other operator’s network would cost up to Rs 5000 a monmth,”Ambani said, adding that the same will cost JioPhone users just Rs 153 a month, and this recharge can only be done on the JioPhone. There will be a weekly plan of Rs 54 and a two-day plan of Rs 24 with all the same features. There will be a Rs 1,500 refundable security deposit with the phone for 36 months. Effectively, this makes the phone completely free, Ambani said.

The first two steps of the plan involve improving connectivity and data affordability. Ambani promised that Jio 4G network coverage will cover 99 percent of India’s population, surpassing 2G networks in that regard.

Tariff plans: Rs 153 per month for unlimited data and calls

All this 4G goodness is of little use without adequate data and bandwidth. To that end, Ambani announced that for Rs 153 a month, every Jio Phone user will get access to unlimited data and voice calling.

Ambani points out that the average 2G feature phone user spends around Rs 200 per month for about 150 minutes of voice calls. From that perspective, the Jio offer represents incredible value.

Those users who are struggling to pay even that much can try Jio’s daily and weekly tariff plans, which offer unlimited data and voice calling for two days for Rs 24 and the same for a week for Rs 54.

The Rs 309 Dhan Dhana Dhan plan is also available. It's only via this plan that you get access to the TV adapter, so it's a must if you want to stream video from your phone to your TV.

Availability

The phone will be available to users for beta testing from 15 August. Other users can start pre-booking the devices from 24 August onwards and the devices will ship in September. The phone will be available to the public thereafter.